Tessen
by Eilyfe
Summary: Cracked by time's march forward, the ruins of Uzu stand forgotten. Until Uzumaki Naruto stumbles upon them and unweaves a web of memories that lays bare the history of his people.
1. Tessen

**AN:** Everything belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.

* * *

 **Tessen**

 _What happens when a jellyfish bursts into flame?_

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I've never considered reading to be very interesting. Where others are fascinated by words dancing before their eyes, ink pulsing to abduct them into another world, I feel boredom. You know me: Uzumaki Naruto—I am (and always was) an in-your-face kind of guy—getting close and taking names, that's my way to release stress. But here, now, I can't help myself. Maybe it's because for the first time I am close to my family in a way I've never been before. I can touch them almost, and it seems that all I need to do is reach out, grasping, and I will hold strands of my mother's hair in my hands; to listen, straining my ears, and hear the whispers of dead relatives, now alive and kicking; to put that cucumber I call my nose up in the air, smell, and get a whiff of briny sea and rolling waves, the ocean that licks at Uzu.

I'm pants at reading, but damn I love a good story, don't you? It's strange and I don't feel much like a writer—maybe I really shouldn't be one; here's a thought for you: would you read something from someone who never reads?—but sitting in this cave, the whirlpool carved into stone all around me, an empty scroll before me, I just feel the urge to put all this down. I want to record what I witnessed here, because all too soon the world will want me back from this trip, and then I'll have to contest with all the assholes again that existence offers in such abundance. It's just too easy to die without making this story known, which is, after all, one half of me.

Great word, abundance, by the way, ain't it? Sakura-chan taught me that one and many more of its kind. Let it melt on your tongue: a-bun-dance. Have you ever seen a bun dance? I did, two at the same time in fact, whenever Hinata jumps for joy—she does that from time to time.

…But back to the tale, time is of short supply, and before I delve into the nitty-gritty details, let's just say that a solid foundation is important, that's what Kakashi-sensei always told me. So, on we go toward putting down the groundwork: there I was, finding a hint of the Uzumaki clan in Konoha's archives, shortly after begging for two weeks off, and then finding myself on a small catamaran that brought me straight to these isles. Uzumaki Naruto, the sun-kissed child of Konoha, now a captain of his own one-man vessel!

As far as ruins go, Uzu is pretty swell. Tall structures, crumbled slightly by age, mossed over by a dark green that encroaches on every building; archways broken in places but with garlands of creepers hanging all about; floors that are, when left uncracked by time's march forward, etched with concentric circles. It didn't take long to notice the whirlpool I walked upon, those stupefying murals of waves and swirls, when I entered into the half-destroyed tower that once stood as a monument to Uzu's might. From here, seal masters had swarmed onto the continent, awing other shinobi who might as well have been toddlers in comparison when it came to making symbols dance to their tune.

But that the place above this cave is beautiful isn't quite the important part. I went through the ruins for a while back then, soaking it all up, but ultimately even they became boring. I had fun imagining my ancestors walking down the streets of smashed cobblestones, all red-haired like my mother and pulling pranks on each other, but really, there wasn't much left of Uzu save shrubbery and stone. I even found what looked like a library, but all of the volumes were destroyed by age and the sea. Eventually, you guessed it, I packed my bags, filled myself with another breath of the history of my people, caressed a last time the pillar that had served as my coat hanger, and then made back for my catamaran.

Wind brought me away from the island, and it was this wind that will now also push this story forward—because it howled and tore at my little boat back then, and though I boast being a captain, I'm really a bad sailor and know next to nothing of the sea.

The wind thrust my vessel directly into a whirlpool that, I swear, hadn't been there before. No idea which trickery concealed the raging waters, that's a secret I haven't uncovered and probably won't, but my family's seals are always a good bet as I found out. I woke up in this cave and everywhere around me lines glowed an eerie blue. They criss-crossed the cave, looped around each other, intertwined in a tapestry of symbols I didn't dare think about. The light seemed forbidden, as if touching even one line which sent out such a pulse of light would bring this whole place down on my head or worse.

I can feel myself blushing writing this, but I'm just such a sucker for forbidden fruits.

You guessed it, I crawled forward after coughing up all the water I had inside me, and put my finger right on the glow, waiting for something to happen—and happen it did, because my ancestors really were freaks of nature when it came to sealing, and they had some nifty tricks that make the hair on my neck stand up in protest. But I'm jumping ahead . . .

The world turned blue; chakra exploded around me and filled the cave with a thrum of energy that sent vibrations all through my body. I felt a gust of wind swell up around me, the whole place bloating with unspent energy, and then it all rushed into me, in one swoop that momentarily stopped my heart as I lay on the ground, unwittingly saving my life by calling up my own chakra.

Hesitation, that's what I felt from the energy. It was coursing through my veins, and my breathing was heavy from exertion, and finally both breathing and energy found a strange equilibrium, a peace of sorts that made me think I had been recognized.

Then came the boom and I was laid out flat on my back as the energy finished up entering my body. Earlier it sought to destroy, but suddenly it caressed me like a good friend, or dare I say it: a lost family member. It went in circles through my body, dancing in waves along my own chakra as the normal circular flow through my Tenketsu continued. And then I felt it: threads swimming in the energy, silvery blue, that were weaving themselves into a motif. Each thread connected with several others, and I knew that if only I reached out, I would find something I had longed for all my life—laughter, a strand of my mother's hair, the whiff of Uzu.

I reached, of course, greedily at every strand, for how could I do anything else? And I found myself in the memories of times long past, in the history of people I had never known, who led lives I never heard about, and all of which perished in a blue flash of malice and despair—all but a few.

So many people, so many pasts, so many ambitions; and ultimately only one fate to all of them. But there I go again, unable to pace myself. I'm probably too impatient for writing; the old pervert would've had a blast laughing at my scribbling were he still alive. It's partly because of him that I'm taking up this brush after all. Memories of a different kind. This cave is full of them, but I guess I could do worse than remember.

Still, the foundation has been laid now. It is time, then, for the first person about whose secrets I will tell you. Uzumaki Kise, tall and good-looking, scrubby red hair like a mop that made him look dreamy to all the ladies, was what you would call a delivery man. He had little ambition and never made it farther than the core curriculum for every Uzumaki, which meant that he never did anything but deliver messages for a living. Not a bad person, mind, just without drive. He liked Ramen and sake, loved to play dice, and made sweet love to his wife whenever the occasion came up (which was every evening, and on Sundays at breakfast and throughout the whole day). This sunday it was he who set things into motion, unwittingly that is, by delivering a message to a man who from that point onward had a tremendously bad day; but you will learn more of this unknown character later.

First let us return to Kise, who kissed his wife goodbye, and plagued by the djinns living in sake bottles went to the first bar open in the morning (brown parcel in his arms), to quench his thirst before he delivered his message. In the bar he met another Uzumaki who owed him money but was nevertheless a good friend. To make up for the large sum, the nameless one sponsored a round of sake and as old friends are want to do, they fell into a bit of palaver, a nice chat that laid bare a secret which would soon make life very difficult for Uzu.

"Have you heard," the nameless one said, "that Yuri slept with Kintaro? The wife's been chattering about it all morning. Yuri came down to the shop last night and asked for—you know what—" Actually, Kise didn't know, and so he asked and learned that _you-know-what_ meant condoms because Yuri's chakra control was bad and she could not apply the necessary Jutsu herself. "Anyway," the nameless one continued, "my wife's been looking out the window then, seeing where Yuri's going off to. And, you won't believe it, right up the street to Kintaro's hut she goes." He laughed, then added, "Little skank. But sexy."

Kise, having no interest in Yuri and being fully satisfied with his wife, just filed the information away, tipped the cup back and delighted in the nice burning sensation that the sake left in his throat. Eventually, three rounds later, the gossiper now out of steam, Kise clapped the man's shoulder and moved to fulfill his duty. It was an easy one after all that paid reasonably well. He reached into his pocket and took out a piece of paper with the name and address of his target. There burned a strange familiarity right behind his eyebrows at the name, but by then he was already quite warm from all the alcohol, didn't notice it, and began to move, dutifully, to do his job.

The recipient of his package, Uzumaki Jimon, was a man in the prime of his years, a master of seals like even Uzu hadn't seen for decades, who made ink his ally to enslave the ethereal currents of chakra. First of his name, lord of the second-highest tower of Uzu, young patriarch of a noble family. He was also, quite contrary to Kise, not enamored with liquor because his decision making became extremely weak when he drank, more so than that of a normal person. Ambitious yet slightly arrogant Jimon always received visitors in the highest chamber of his tower, so that he could look out the large windows and remind himself of the sky yet to conquer; his supplicants in the meanwhile could walk briefly through all the different storeys that counted as his tower, his belongings, reminding themselves of who was the mightiest of Uzu.

And so it happened also with Kise, who arrived at the highest level, huffing and slightly red from all the sweat. He still had sake run like battery acid through his blood and met Jimon as the latter was just contemplating his as of yet greatest accomplishment: how he managed, a few months ago, to win the favor of Uzumaki Yuri. A fair woman that some would call a skank, some would call sexy, and I'm sure you know by now where this story is going; or so you think.

The parcel was delivered quickly; but while Jimon opened it to check on its content, inebriated Kise could not hold himself back, because added to his dreamy looks was always also the cheeky tongue that made him so likeable. Leaning against a pillar and looking out the window and down the tower, he whistled at the height. All of Jimon's subtle power plays were lost on Kise's drunken soul; all he cared for were the steps he had fought with on the way up (two times pausing for rest).

"This' a damn high tower," Kise said. "Can't remember having made it up here before"—laughing quite loudly—"Would it kill you to hold meetings at a lower level, mate?"

But while most Uzumaki possessed a funny bone, that wasn't quite the case with ambitious Jimon, who dreamed of stars and leadership, and had found the gifts of power and talent in his crib when he was born. Jimon grunted as he unpacked the parcel. The jokes of lower people were not for him.

"Not much of a talker, are you?" Kise said, still laughing and, emboldened by the djinns of sake, entirely misjudging the situation. "Doesn't matter; doesn't matter. Don't you worry. Just tell me if everything's alright with the package and I'm out of ye'r precious tower."

"If you stop your useless blathering I will," Jimon said, his voice laced with the dripping essence of contempt that pooled in large puddles around his feet.

"Oi!" Kise said, stepping away from the pillar. "I was just making some conversation, you prick. That's no reason to get insulting."

The brown paper of the parcel lying in a heap around him, Jimon was about to reach for the letter attached to the package when those words reached him. "What did you call me?" he said, hand stopping mid-way to the letter.

Kise, now that the djinns revealed their ugly faces, went up to him, chest to chest, and both measured each other with anger flashing in their eyes. "I called you a prick, dumbass. You ain't the sharpest tool, eh?" But even as he spoke those brave words, Kise averted his eyes from Jimon's cold gaze, only for them to find purchase at a photograph on the table behind Jimon, on which the 'prick' could be seen kissing a familiar woman.

"You better leave now, delivery boy," Jimon said, smiling like a knife. "I don't want your fear staining my floors."

Kise grinned at that, because, however ashamed I am to admit it, Uzumaki can be bastards just as well as everyone else. I'm not too proud of this, but for the sake of this narrative I'm rather showing you two people here who were quite prone to emotional outbursts on the cruel end of the spectrum. However, whatever else you learn from this, let it not go unmentioned that both of them, despite what they called up later on, had also known love: Kise for his wife, and Jimon for Yuri.

And it was the last part that made Kise's next words reach deeper than any blade could ever cut: "You really should keep track of your girl, mate," Kise said. "Who knows in how many other beds she'll crawl. I heard that she got summin' on the side last night, had a nice time with Kintaro, made the beast with two backs—you get my drift?"

Jimon had become silent, was listening while his chakra gathered in his abdomen and was, like the man himself, rearing for a fight.

"Yuri's a skank, but a sexy one," Kise said, mirroring the unnamed Uzumaki. "C'mon, mate. Silent now? That's no way to treat a guest…"

"Leave," Jimon said, and his word smashed through Kise's inebriation in a split-second, the frightening power behind it breaking apart the grip that the djinns had on him—for a moment that was. But Kise's part in this story is over for the moment. He delivered his message, riled Jimon, and then, noticing the danger of his behavior, made sure to reach the tower's exit quickly. His wife was waiting on him, and Uzumaki Kise would have a few nice hours with her and do another job before Jimon finally exacted his retribution.

Even now, recalling the memory of this man and what it showed me, I still cannot fathom the power of the seal that makes all this possible. He was just one man, one soul in a village of hundreds, and yet I possess of him a web of memories that details almost all his life. If I want to I could even watch how he shat or got it on with his wife. But although I'm tempted, at least for the sexual part, I feel that this would make me too much of a voyeur; Jiraiya's ghost, who surely is going to haunt me for this decision, be damned.

So, where are we? Betrayal and love, two potent ingredients. Now, put to that a man with an arrogance that grew from birth and was allowed to take hold of him for all his life without reprisal; even before I spell it out, you will reach your own conclusion of how Jimon felt at that moment. But here it is:

He did not believe, of course, a word that Kise spoke. He was as close to becoming the leader of Uzu as any one man could be—he had power, fame, and the woman of his dreams would surely not leave him for lower men. Besides, while Kintaro was a lowly peasant, he was still a man of some skill with seals and therefore known to Jimon. Kintaro loved his wife dearly and would never betray her with Yuri. That was the impression that Jimon had of him, and therefore there could be no feasible explanation but that the delivery man had been lying.

Jimon calmed himself; his chakra ebbed away, a force unused, a multitude of possible deaths unrealized. He looked (still dismayed but with a modicum of composure) at the letter in his hand; then his grin became wide.

But before I tell you of the contents of this letter, let me swing over to another part of the narrative, another thread in the fabric of my family. It's one I've been wanting to talk about for a while now, one that's been rather incessant in how it always pushes to the forefront of my mind. The thread is red and wants its story told, and it's a female thread that, make no mistake about it, knows what it wants, knew it at an early age, from birth onward, really.

Meet Uzumaki Kushina, then, who liked to fight and, at the same time as Kise talked to Jimon, stumbled through fields of yellow flowers as she hunted three boys because one of them dared to pull her hair and the other two, even worse, ventured to laugh. Her hair was long, even then, and when she ran it fanned out behind her like a waterfall that went horizontally. God, I'm no good at similes and the like; but it's my mother and I want to write something beautiful about her, so I thought maybe... Urgh, forget the horizontal waterfall, then, there are more important things to talk about: right now my mother managed to get a hold of the evildoer and tumbled with him to the ground, the other boys still laughing and chanting, 'Fight! Fight!' because that's what shinobi did anyway and all of them knew. But she was only seven and still one year younger than the boy who teased her—a lovely affair: he was freckled, had a cherubic smile, and was secretly interested in her because unlike other girls she liked to play rough with the boys and wasn't half bad at it—although that boy soon showed that one year was a lot of time for extra development.

When he reversed the outcome of the fight and managed to get on top as they rolled around in the grass, he let out a triumphant cry. That was the first and the last time my mother lost to a boy until she met my father. And being not at all able to stomach a loss, she interrupted his victory shout by scratching at his arms with one hand, and throwing sand at his face with the other. I can't in good conscience say she was a fair fighter, but then again, neither am I. At that moment she made the laughing boys respect her seven-year old grit, while making her opponent's love vanish as he felt the prickling of sand in his eyes, and the burn of a lady's claws on his arm.

The aftermath is told quickly: wounded in pride and body, the boy returned to his family's compound, at the center of which stood a familiar tower, several storeys high, the topmost windows facing the sky. He did not meet with Jimon, his uncle and the patriarch, but with his mother instead, who—incensed and possessed by a similar arrogance as her brother though not quite as much talent in sealing—first lovingly healed his wounds, then softly chided him for losing to a lesser family, and lastly took his arm and pulled him out of the estate. She marched him to an assortment of houses near the village's library, clustered in a mad circle around a small tower, only three storeys high. There she knocked furiously against the door and demanded entrance, a rude request which was granted when a man with a red stubbly chin opened the door, a green apron fastened around his waist.

"Yes?" he said to the mother, eyes sleepy, sauce dripping from the ladle he held in his hand, a bit protectively as though to ward off anger.

"Is this…this fury that hurt my son here?"

That made the man frown dangerously. You see, my grandfather was a simple man whose seals were of mediocre quality if compared to the rest of my clan's, but he had a fierce protective instinct toward his family, and those that sought to harm them often found out that he needed not much in the way of sealing to make them regret it. He had his fists, and they hurt damn hard. If I look closely at my memories of him, and I do that quite often, I think that maybe our hands look somewhat alike.

Despite the insult though, he also knew that Kushina could be a bit wild at times, and so he called into the house: "Kushina, mouse, come down, please. I want to talk to you." There was the sound of footfall, the pounding of unruly feet on wooden stairs, then she was there, angelic in appearance yet carrying a defiant spark in her eyes after seeing who stood before their door.

"Ran to your momma, have you?" she said, grinning and revealing a little gap between her teeth.

"I didn't—" the boy said, but his mother had already strengthened the grip around his arm and he stopped, grimacing.

"So you're the girl who almost scratched out his eye?"

My grandfather turned to Kushina. "Is that true, mouse? Did you do that?"

"The lady should've listened better," my mother said, shrugging her shoulders. Then she pointed at the boy. "I didn't scratch at his eye. I just used sand for that. I scratched his arm." There was a trace of accomplishment in her words that drove the woman across her to flush as red as her hair.

"You little beast, lying now, are you?"

The woman made a step forward but found herself facing off against a ladle dripping with tomato soup.

"I will thank you not to call my daughter a beast, Asahina-san." He turned to my mother: "And you, Kushina, no dinner for you."

"But I didn't scratch his eye!"

"I told you not to fight with the boys all the time, didn't I? Go in now, to your mother. I'll be with you in a minute."

My mother stomped her feet once, threw a haughty look at the boy who stood ashamed next to his mother, and then vanished inside. Uzumaki Asahina, who now has a name, stood speechless for a moment as she stared down the length of the ladle. Now she found her voice, however, and it was not a pretty one.

"This is intolerable," she said in a deadly whisper. "Your brat almost gouged out my boy's eye and now she's missing one dinner? Are you serious?"

"I am," my grandfather said, "Kushina didn't scratch at his eye, and the boy's fine anyway. See, nothing too bad happened. Don't worry I'll make sure to talk to her."

"That's not enough," the woman said.

My grandfather sighed, lowering the ladle. "What do you want me to do, lash her? I'll talk with her and that's that. She's a good girl."

"Maybe you _should_ discipline her."

The skin around my grandfather's eyes tightened. "I think you should leave now. There's nothing more to discuss." Then he closed the door and left for the living room, intent on explaining to his daughter why agonizing neighbors wasn't a good idea.

Now that my mother has been introduced and her ferocious and unapologetic nature is duly expressed, let us move quickly, only for a short moment, to a man that many of you will know at least from legends. He sat on a boat, lazing in a folded sail and staring at the cloud-streaked sky through which, now and then, broke a ray of sun. His mind was full of images of a woman (again!) who had beautiful brown eyes, long black hair, outstanding skill at utilizing Ninjutsu, and a mouth that was made for kissing. Indeed, Hatake Sakumo was filled with love for a very special woman, a love that would ultimately lead to a man I'd come to call sensei decades later. But Kakashi-sensei had not been born as of then, and so Sakumo's daydreaming was restricted to this special woman and how he loved to watch the way she moved when doing mundane things. In two days, he knew, he would have finished with his mission to Uzu. He would have learned of the council's decision of who Uzu's next leader would be, and after relaying Konoha's congratulations he'd take those news back to Konoha, where he'd greet that very special woman with a searing kiss.

As far as missions went, this was easily one of the most uneventful he ever had—yet.

But Sakumo, for the vital part he has yet to play, still needs to content himself with waiting for now, because while his thread merited a little mention before its great moment, there is another one that now begs for a continuation. And so we move back to Uzumaki Jimon, who read the letter brought to him by Kise, and now, a few hours later, moved (with an aura of grace that could not hide his status-inappropriate giddiness) speedily along the large bridge that connected West and East Uzu.

His goal was the large assembly hall of the council, where soon his ascendency to the highest village office would be finalized. All his life he had worked tirelessly for the moment when his grueling training finally paid off. His pride was still a bit stung from Kise's comments, a bedrock of glowing embers in his chest that for now remained peaceful, however. The commoner had been a nuisance, he thought, but was inconsequential in the larger scheme of things. Soon he would be able to call himself the Uzukage, and that was all Jimon had ever wanted.

Why? Acknowledgement, of course.

So, that afternoon, Jimon walked up and down in the small antechamber of the assembly hall, waiting to be called up by the council of elders, to which would also soon belong the current old Uzukage—who was, coincidentally, Uzumaki Mito's father, and who had heartily accepted his daughter's request to marry Senju Harashima.

Eventually the door across Jimon opened and he was beckoned inside. He found himself in a big hall, gilded braziers spreading the musk of incense and smoke. Shadows were chasing each other across the marbled floor with all the concentric circles etched into it, and the multitude of murals depicting rolling waves. At the end of the hall was a massive table, at which found place seven councilors—all of them for different purposes, holding important offices, and in the middle of them, the current Uzukage.

Jimon's walk was confident as he moved up to the table, stopping a few feet before the group of councilors. Now, finally, it would happen. He had slaved above seal matrixes, had forged connections with the other high-borns, had fulfilled the most dangerous missions for his village—all this would now be paid credence to. Then the door to another antechamber opened, and in came a second person, a woman of medium height with a red ponytail and a smile that had melted, in its time, the hearts of men.

Jimon knew her, of course, since they had been teammates until they became Jōnin. More than once she had made clear that she didn't requite his teenage love for her. That, however, had been years ago. Jimon had Yuri now; and while the sting of rejection remained a pesky thorn in his side, this was owed only to his pride, not love.

Her appearance surprised him nonetheless. No one had told him, you see, that the office of Uzukage was contested by two people. The sudden competition had sneaked up on him, and he felt his earlier confidence shudder at the thought. I could recount in detail all the points the council made, debating positive and negative for both candidates—and believe me, there were plenty of points on both sides and for both contenders—but that would take quite long, and I've felt my hand cramp around the brush for a while now.

Let us cut this matter short, then: the former Uzukage declared that, by the narrowest of margins, Jimon had missed his life's goal. The beautiful lady with the red ponytail would become the new Uzukage.

The point that tipped the balance in her favor? Contrary to Jimon, who lived for his life as nobility and wasted little thought on the simple people of Uzu (people like Kise), his contender swaggered on both paths, being noble herself yet walking frequently the markets of East Uzu, holding a bit of palaver herself with folks that Jimon would consider beneath his status. It was thus, that the council found her more appropriate to represent the entirety of their village. Imagine, if you will, what this news must have done to the glowing bed of embers in Jimon's heart. Move after move, _tessen_ began fanning the fire from all directions now: the poor man never stood a chance.

But a tragedy such as the one this narrative is moving toward, just from being rejected by the council? Hardly, my friends, hardly. Kise's _tessen_ is swung rather hesitantly, and it is now time to have him return for his last job. He had just made dirty love to his wife, bending her over the kitchen counter, his warm (slightly alcoholic) breath on her throat as he leaned in, when the seal on his biceps alerted him to his duty. A message had to be delivered, fast at that, and he should hurry to the central delivery station, from where he would then move out to the target location. Slightly grumbling, but dutiful as always, Kise pulled up his pants, tugged away his kunai, and scratched his itching biceps before leaving for work once more. The message? Why, to my mother's home, of course.

You see, Asahina, the cunt (forgive my manners, but it is true as you shall see shortly), went and lodged a complaint with the appropriate village body about the treatment of her son at the hands of my mother. Now, my mother of course couldn't be charged, but her family? That's another question altogether. And since both 'feuding' families belonged to nobility, however far they were from each other in terms of power and influence, a hearing wasn't too unrealistic to resolve the issue. That such a hearing was held the same day the charge was made, however, now that stinks of undue pressure on the system, exacted by someone with far too much money and power.

In his last job, then, Kise delivered the summons in all haste, to return quickly to his wife and continue where they left off. My grandfather was, as you can imagine, not the happiest person after receiving the summons. Nonetheless, if you were called upon, you complied, which is why he took Kushina (after changing her dress to one that wasn't smeared with mud) to East Uzu, the government district to be precise.

Admittedly, my mother and grandfather could have been more graceful in victory, but with all the trouble that miserable Asahina made, I can fault them neither for sticking out their tongues, nor for the little victory dance that happened in perfect synchronicity after the judgment was passed.

It was a silly affair, really, but one that became quite serious once Jimon walked by, furious stalking the halls of the administrative district after being rejected. Recognizing his sister at her voice, listening to the verdict, and then witnessing the ridicule my family heaped upon his… He must have felt as though suddenly all of Uzu stood against him. A few people had witnessed the whole spiel, and their snickering hidden behind lifted hands only stoked the fire further. Incensed by all the gloating and the misfortune that had managed to wreck his life that day, he stalked out of West Uzu without bothering to acknowledge his sister as he went by, and made a bad decision that would lead to another, far worse one.

Jimon was unfamiliar with all the bars in East Uzu, having never seen much use in them; now that the world united against him, however, he thought it wise to listen to the rumors he had often heard about the healing properties of liquor—or if not healing, then the quality to vanish memories, if only for a short time. He chose at random a place (coincidentally the bar in which Kise heard of Yuri's infidelity), sat down, and ordered drink after drink, inviting the two-faced djinns to take control of him, to suffuse him with their power in order to heal, while also whispering dangerous thoughts into his ears.

It was late afternoon by the time he was done, and slowly the sun went down in all of Uzu. Laden with sake in his gut, he staggered outside, hearing at an open window a few houses down the road, a giggle that sounded familiar and penetrated the liquid haze around his mind. He stopped and strained his ears. There it was! Again, the giggle! But this house, no, it couldn't be. His gut twisted, and he went to the window which was set high into the wall. He pushed himself onto his toes, higherhigherhigher, to reach the windowsill, and then—then he saw it: three people, naked, a condom wrapped around a kunai, two women playing and giggling, one of them Yuri, the other Kintaro's wife who had not been cheated after all.

Four _tessen_ , that's what we have right now: rejection, betrayal, shame, and the treacherous voices of djinns. Look at those flames, licking at the sky almost. How long does it take for a thread to burn through? How long until a tapestry goes up in flames? There was an anger inside him then, a beast that fed greedily and grew at an alarming rate as it consumed his fury, throwing itself without abandon against the cage that locked it in, the bars of sanity that held it back. But no, the bars still held; and so, while Jimon—holding himself back from moving into the house and unleashing his anger—made for his tower, we move to introduce a last character whose thread is almost as insistent as my mother's and just as red.

Meet Uzumaki Misa of the gentle gray eyes, Keeper of Records, and, more importantly, my grandmother:

"I can't believe you antagonized them," she said to her husband, face drawn in disappointment. "Uzu wasn't built on feuds and war, you know that."

"But Misa—" grandfather said, just as Kushina opened her mouth to call, "But mama—"

"No but," granny replied. "There's never been a country on this continent, for which it was good that the leading families—or any family—antagonized each other."

"Must you always bring up history, wife?"

"If it proves a point, yes. We learn from history, and I want Uzu to be a place where Kushina can grow up without having to constantly look over her shoulders."

"But mama, that lady was—"

"—concerned for her son, as it sounds, if overly excited." Grandmother sighed and knelt down to look Kushina in the eyes. "Look, honey, I know that some people can behave badly. But it's not good to mirror them. When they do that, we'll just try to stand above that, okay?" Then she smiled and kissed my mother's hair, and I admit that I'm feeling funny at writing this, almost as though I can feel the kiss myself. But that's silly, I know it is. Still, sometimes I wish…

No matter, no matter. Let's continue onward, shall we? After sufficiently scolding her husband for letting matters escalate like this (though admittedly I'm with grandpa on this one), grandmother took Kushina out of the house to Jimon's tower, intent on making a formal apology to the young and hurt boy, and also clearing up the issue with Asahina. Not an easy venture, mind, but there was an unquenchable determination to Misa, a strength of mind to see through whatever she aimed for, that I admire greatly.

It was evening when the two of them arrived at the tower and went up the stairs to the third-highest chamber, where Uzumaki Asahina could be found, the second-highest chamber being Jimon's sealing laboratory. And it was also there that my mother and grandmother witnessed the fifth and final _tessen_ that contributed to the bonfire into which soon the tapestry of my whole clan would be thrown.

His own sister—wouldn't you believe it?—was the one to push Jimon down the stairs, if you will, locking him firmly into the catacombs of loathing that were festering in his heart. Here you have it, two siblings, both shamed in different ways and filled with an encompassing pride that made dealing with such a feeling difficult. Rejected, betrayed and djinn-induced met being publicly defeated and derision.

"They will rue the day they crossed this family," Jimon said, marching angrily between the shelves and the rug in Asahina's reception chamber, where the latter lay enraged on her settee, observing her brother's wild pacing.

"Empty words," she said, cutting. "Like always."

Jimon stopped abruptly and turned, the djinns circling his head—for a moment all was upside down. "What?" he then asked, holding his head and glaring at his sister.

"'Look at me'," Asahina aped, "'I will become the Uzukage. No one will ever dare to lift a hand against our family.' Yes, good job, brother dearest. I see you fully accomplished your goal. And now that stupid bint Yuri also betrayed you and mocks this family further?" Her laughter was cold and precise, inflicting at a perfect pitch a stabbing wound that eventually doomed all of Uzu. "Indeed, a good job you did, brother. Father would kill himself a second time were he still alive from the first."

And then there was a silence that almost crushed my mother and grandmother, who stood outside the slightly opened door (a mistake made in anger), and kept very quiet lest they alarm the two siblings within.

"You don't believe me?" Jimon laughed now too, a maniacal laugh that tethered on the insane as each bellow was interrupted by a wet cough, ultimately ending in a cacophony of brutalized lungs. Jimon's sweaty red hair stuck in strands to his face as he calmed himself down, whispering, "I'll show you, _sister dearest_ , I'll show you."

"What will you show me, more failure?"

"Their heads," Jimon said, chest heaving, and still the floor turned and turned. "All of them. Those old bastard elders', Kintaro's, Yuri's...that little beast that insulted you so much. All of them, Asa. All of them! You hear me now? All!"

"Promises," Asahina said derisively. "You're talk, Jimon, nothing more. Now go, I want to read and calm down from all this stupidity." A command that Jimon followed, hurrying to his sealing chamber while my grandmother sped through hand seals to conceal Kushina and herself. And as the furious Uzumaki rushed by, all my grandmother saw on his face was the mask of grotesque fury that deformed Jimon's aristocratic features.

What did Jimon do? How did he plan to exact his revenge? I could lead you through all the steps, but I don't understand most of them myself since they involve sealing in large amounts and with an incredible complexity. Don't forget: He was a genius too, just not where it counted. Since I'm pants at sealing though, let's follow the thread of my grandmother to the moment she returned home an hour later with Kushina and began talking with her husband about the threats made to their baby girl.

"I told you, didn't I?" said my grandfather—rather unhelpfully—"That family is a menace."

"What do we do?"

"Let that bastard come, I'll smash him to pieces."

Uzumaki Misa shook her head and put a calming hand on her husband's arm. "He is the strongest sealing master we have had in decades. I don't want anyone to die in this."

"I can take him."

"I know you can," she said, "but it's still too dangerous."

"What else, then?"

"I'll pack some essentials and take Kushina to the Cave of Records. She'll be safe there until this matter is resolved."

My grandfather nodded, and on his face too there was a disfiguration going on, but not in the slightest similar to Jimon's. While the latter was made ugly by madness, my grandfather, to me, looked radiant as the razor-sharp anger behind his eyes showed—the indomitable wish to protect, buried under an, at times, goofy exterior.

"Take Kushina to the cave, then," he said, suddenly pulling her into a kiss that lasted only briefly. "I'll hurry and inform the elders. They'll know what to do."

"Take care, husband."

"I will."

Then my grandfather left the compound, hurtling down the road to West Uzu as fast as his legs could carry him. In the meanwhile, my grandmother went through the house and packed a few essential items, explaining to Kushina what would happen next. Half an hour later, she took my mother and led her through East Uzu, carefully as not to be noticed by anyone. The Cave of Records was only safe as long as no one knew that someone lived inside it, after all.

It was this necessity for stealth that made traversing the village so time-consuming. It was already late evening by then and the moon was up, yet Uzumaki liked to party and the streets were lit in every possible color, and filled with far too many people. It took several Genjutsu and seals to even clear the first few roads jammed solid with my gifted clansmen, all of which were rather good at detecting illusions. (My grandfather's side of the family seemingly being the sole exception to that rule.)

I, erm, apologize for interrupting the narrative again, but what comes next isn't easy for me to write about. I've heard that talking or writing can make problems better, but I'm not so sure with this one. It's still my clan and, more importantly, my immediate family that's concerned. I'm not even sure if I really want to work through all this, because feeling this pain makes me feel closer to them in a weird way, as though I'm sharing something with these people I've never met. But since I've written that much already, it would be silly not to finish, eh? I guess there's no way but through now…

Let's move on, then, to the final hour. It was night, granny and mom were in the middle of East Uzu, four roads away from the harbor, and a few more than that away from the Cave of Records. The village was partying it up, work for the day finally finished, when from the second-highest tower of Uzu came a droning sound as though the whole world reverberated. The ground trembled under the sound, and my family quickly took cover as it grew louder and louder. Then a single blue spark shot from the highest window of the tower into the night sky.

First people cheered, thinking this an elaborate surprise—what was a party without fireworks?—and only the truly versed in sealing instantly understood what it meant. Then the blue spark met the invisible sealing barrier that surrounded Uzu at all times, and even the slow learners felt panic rise inside them. The blue spark ignited the barrier; from that point of impact, green fire raced across the translucently shimmering cocoon that was wrapped around Uzu like a big jellyfish. The green fire spread, the flames licking at the sky and reaching ever-higher, much like the fury of Uzumaki Jimon had been fanned up to the ceiling of his heart, consuming everything in sight.

I'm not sure I can adequately describe what my grandmother felt at this point, even with all these threads at my fingertips, but you should know that she _was_ one of the most gifted seal masters in the village, and she knew exactly what the barrier exemplified. It was Uzu's security net, a shield that had kept the village safe for centuries from outside influence. Sealing, she knew, needed a lot of preparation, and without the safety of this barrier, the nation would have perished far sooner. With enough preparation, we Uzumaki could lay waste to armies. Without that time, however, we were (with a few examples like my grandfather) a bunch of mediocre fighters. Yet, for the power we held over chakra, for the way we could manipulate it with ink and brush, we were despised as much as loved. How many conflicts had been solved to the benefit of one side because an Uzumaki designed a vital seal that turned the tide? Too many to count, and it was the over-reliance on this proficiency that eventually did us in.

Anyway, there she was, Uzumaki Misa, the green glow of the sky in her hair, her daughter pressed to her body, and a horrified expression that transfigured her face now, too.

Then came the first explosion, and I don't know if anyone could have anticipated such a quick response from the nations that had a problem with Uzu's existence. How much time had passed from the moment Jimon stormed out of his sister's chamber? Two hours, maybe two and a half, but that's it.

One hundred and fifty minutes—that was all the time he needed to get a message out to the battalion of Kiri-nin closest to Uzu: to Kiri, a sea nation that lusted for my clan's demise just as much as Kumo did, but which was vastly better prepared to strike us the fatal blow.

I learned the following from my own experience: There is no one who has greater mobility and speed on the sea than Kiri's special division which has been trained for such scenarios all their life. How did it go down, then? Jimon informed them, through what? A seal, though even with all the times I've looked now, I don't know how it worked exactly. The Kiri-nin likely had something similar to correspond with their Kage, or maybe they had a standing order to invade the moment the chance presented itself—dangerous times back then, but that's not much different from today, eh?

And Jimon? He informed them: rejected, betrayed, shamed, advised by djinns and ridiculed by his sister, he made a pact with them; spare me, he said, liquor-addled, and I will give you the key to Uzu.

There is much than can be said about the following hours, but I will restrict myself to the necessary essentials. I'm sorry for that, but this is painful, and writing about it might be just as bad as watching it. So, here it goes:

After the chaos that was sown by Kiri's special division, it took only one or two more hours until the major force reinforced them. There was death on the streets, screams ringing out loudly, and the air tasted not briny but of bitter iron. All this took only one night, and the mighty village of Uzu was reduced to rubble, every clansmen of mine slaughtered in this massacre. And even though I know the current generation has nothing to do with it, and that Mei is capable and just, I don't think I'll be able to treat her the same as before after learning all this. I'll try, but already I feel that I'm hitting on a boundary, as though something inside me doesn't want to forgive everything. We humans are strange animals, aren't we?

But there is one part yet to play out, and before I unravel that last thread, let me just assure you that Jimon and Asahina found their end at the fists of my grandfather, who eventually stormed their tower, barraged through all the sixteen floors up to the highest chamber, and made sure that these particular Uzumaki were nothing more than red stains on which the stars then shone, unconquered still despite their boundless ambition.

Grandpa never made it off the island though. He died trying to save Kintaro's child, an endeavor that bore fruit, even though a Kiri-nin gutted him for it. Kintaro's child? I don't know much about the girl, just that she made it to a stretch of the stony coast and crawled into a deserted boat. That's where the island of Uzu ends, and with that also the memory of her. I can tell you though that, even though her face was stretched by fear and her eyes rimmed red from tears, she reminds me a lot of Nagato's more feminine features. I'm sure there were other such children which barely escaped to the continent; after all, I have yet to look at every thread. One such child I can mention though, and I'm sure you can guess who that was.

It is precisely at this point that Hatake Sakumo enters the picture again, because lazing on his boat and thinking on the love of his life, he was near the position of my grandmother, who hurried my mother, now not protected by carefully woven illusions anymore, through the streets and away from the explosions.

The Cave of Records wasn't safe anymore, not with such an force to ravage the island, and it was pure chance that Sakumo, in the attempt to help my frightened clansmen, stumbled upon my mother. She recognized the White Fang easily, more so after he split in half the two Kiri-nin that had cornered her. And it was this man that she then, heavy-hearted, trusted with the life of her daughter, because apart from knowing him through legend, she had also met him personally and knew his honor and integrity to be beyond reproach.

Sakumo was hesitant at first, but at the sight of her disheveled state, of the fear written all over her, the single-minded wish— _protect my daughter, please!_ —etched onto her face, he agreed. My mother protested, of course, but grandmother put her to sleep with an easy technique, and after she kissed Kushina goodbye for the last time, she hurried onward to fulfill, much like Kise did earlier for his delivery, the last duty she had in this life.

It was the cave in which I'm currently sitting, the Cave of Records, where Uzumaki Misa of the gentle gray eyes, Keeper of Records, gave her life's essence to power the most complex seal in the history of the Uzumaki: a matrix that viewed each person, however briefly they might have been on this island, as just one more thread in the historical tapestry of my clan, to someday be viewed in full by the lost children who had escaped the whirlpool choking on blood.

I'm close to putting down the brush, now, since the time has come for me to return to Konoha even if I've yet to unravel every thread. But the story that is most important to me, the story of how my mother came to Konoha, has been told. I'll take this back with me to the village, so that the story of who I am, or rather where I came from, can never again be lost.

Maybe I'll even come back to this cave again to find out more about my people, to share in their days of glory when the sky was not a burning green, but for now this must suffice.

Uzumaki Naruto

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 **AN:** That's it, folks. Thanks for reading. I experimented with a different narrative structure here, but I hope you enjoyed yourself. This is, in any case, my take on Uzu's history.


	2. Smile

**Disclaimer:** Everything belongs to Kishimoto.

 **AN:** This is not a continuation of Tessen; I put this in here, because this will basically become my gathering chest for oneshots.

 **Synopsis:** An alternate take in an alternate world at Naruto's and Shikamaru's friendship. **  
**

* * *

 **Smile**

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I had always been prone to rash behavior. Sometimes it felt as if the name Uzumaki left me few options.

All the more it had been important to surround myself with people who did the opposite when I became Hokage all those years ago. And what great friends those people had become. They taught me how to listen, though, and how to watch. They taught me how to appreciate not just the listless wind on my skin as I leaped between the trees, but also the stillness of a single moment.

And among all my friends there had been none who taught me more than Shikamaru. Shikamaru, who now lay before me on the verge of handing his soul to the Shinigami, smiling though, ever smiling. And in the curve of his lip the implied challenge: observe the moment, and pay attention to the details. Near death, honor me by doing my teaching justice.

He did not need to challenge me; I would have done this on my own.

So I looked at his pale face, hair sweaty on his brow, looked at his smile, watched.

And I saw history flow by, because in the way it gently mocked me, his smile had never changed a bit from when we still listened to Iruka about the necessity of preparation before a mission; when we heard of the innumerable feats of past Hokage that I could recite from memory – a feat that would have gotten me far in the Academy, had I only applied it to other venues; and also when I looked on, amazed, as Shikamaru – who knew none of the great shinobi's feats – solved problem after problem that made my head hurt back then.

He had an air of effortlessness about him when it came to using his mind. Throughout my life I remained convinced that he slept half the time not because he was lazy, but because he ran out of problems to solve. I envied him, and that he was my friend only made it more difficult. Back then, in times where I admittedly was not the most studious person, he impressed me precisely because he combined the level of involvement I wished to have, with the level of smarts I expected from that. Such distinctions were trivial now, but back then they seemed terribly important to me.

In that smile of his, that gently mocking smile, I also saw pain, however. I saw the events that made our paths cross after they had diverged during our early careers as Genin. It was so rare to see him that until the Chūnin Exams I had lost track of him altogether. He was vapor, because metal, blood, ice, a searing heat and turning windmills filled every available nook inside my head.

Friendship was important, but under Kakashi I learned to regard my team as my family, and wasn't that even more important? I would have never abandoned a friend, but there was a hierarchy in my mind back then, Sasuke, Sakura and Kakashi right at the top of the pyramid, because I yearned for family. Only later did I learn that between family and friend lay no discernible distinction anymore, and that the duty of the Hokage meant everyone was both to me.

And when, during the Chūnin Exams, an explosion knocked me out as I leapt through the city on my way to the Ichibi's form, what I had learned with Team Seven reaffirmed itself with Shikamaru. There was nothing that kitted you closer together than fighting side by side against innumerable odds. No idea how things could have turned out had I reached Gaara back then, but someone else took that duty from me.

When I woke up, it was to the sound of clashing metal and gargled screams. There was the feeling of blood sprayed on my face. An incredible heat seemed to carry the stench of Konoha's sewers with it as it licked up my nose. Shikamaru stood above me. He held up fingers and asked me how many, and when I answered he smiled, more juvenile and less secure than now, his lips drawn in relief and undercut with horror at once. I had no idea how or why Kusa was attacking us, why anyone was attacking us at all. The world had made little sense for most of my life, and that day it verged on being unintelligible altogether.

But we clawed our way out of Death's grizzly stomach, unwilling to die we made him spit us out again, whole – at least in body. And I appreciated Shikamaru's dry wit as we kept ourselves sane during the insane hours of the attack; and I appreciated his muted words and his silence after it became known that the Third had died; and lastly I appreciated the all too human tears he shed as we buried our friends and let flowers sail into their graves. Chōji, Ino, Kiba, too many to name who surprise had killed that day.

In that smile of his, that gently mocking, pained smile, I saw a glint of insanity. A spark that would resurface many times in the years after the Chūnin Exams, mirrored in a thousand faces, as all of Konoha held onto a last, tiny string of sanity while the world around us dissolved into war and bloodshed. We learned, all of us, that keeping your mind was hard when alliances were made and broken in the same breath. When today you shared your meal with people you killed come morning, because once more the missive came in that the borders had shifted, a treaty had been broken, the strategy changed, and we were now allied with so and so, instead of so and so.

Life became worth nothing, people were interchangeable. For every day your sense of morality rebelled against this state, a week followed in which you witnessed atrocities that were a testament to the despicable depths to which humanity could fall. In no time of my life had I felt as much in tune with Jiraiya's wish for peace, and at the same time as removed from it in reality.

Team members died, changed, got promoted; until it was my turn and I became a leader, and in all hours tried to make sure the people under me survived, and in all hours faced the impossibility of such a wish – until my squad and Shikaramu's collided on a mission and we made ourselves a name, and were, from then on, without dying, without failure, the one unit the big wigs in Konoha kept together at all costs.

When I was young, the office of Hokage had supreme worth. It was the goal, the focal point of my ambition. As war engulfed us, Hokage, too, became interchangeable. They died, no matter their strength. Some held out longer than others: Danzō, Kakashi, Shikamaru's father – all of them intelligence, grit and skill personified. And yet all were offered up at the altar of war.

Each time a Hokage died, we were thrown into chaos. The message devastated us at the front, jumbled our structures of power at home. After the third change that decimated our morale to such a degree we lost vital strategic key points, the higher ups put a Hokage in place who wasn't to go to the battlefield at all; a Hokage in name, so that the order would not be disrupted; but who agreed in all matters with the honorable Elders. The title of Hokage became a laughing stock, and in those tides of blood drowned my dream, nothing more than a piece of flotsam in a storm.

Yet we persisted. Because us Konoha folk had always been hardy and tenacious. As the war went on, and no one died under my command, I kept listening to Shikamaru. My friendship to him kept me anchored, and his wisdom tethered me to sanity. I came to make a name for myself, as did he. Names we would have exchanged willingly for none of this to ever have happened. But that was an illusion. It happened, and we were the eye of the storm while the war intensified. With his strategies we took fortress after fortress; our names began to resound with power, and behind us we left a trail of corpses, and walked, dulled in mind and soul, onward – where to?

We had no idea.

Team leader became unit leader, unit leader became troop commander, and on it went, until I held in my palms the lives of hundreds as I planned advances on one front and prepared an ambush at another – always guided by him, who had by then become the chief strategist, and who declined any offer to take up the general's badge himself. Too much responsibility he used to say. He was right.

I looked at his smile, gentle, pained, and specked with insanity, and saw in it an unquenchable pride. A feeling I shared, as we – tired from war and now with enough power under our command – made to change reality, made Jiraiya's dream our goal, no matter what we had to do.

It started with a single decision. It was dissent. But at that point we did not care anymore. The orders came from a Hokage we only knew by name, who had never seen the frontlines, who knew neither us nor our tradition. Because it was strategically expedient, we were to abandon a Kiri position we had helped defend against Kumo. They were only short term allies, and we didn't know them very much, but at that point enough was enough. And if we died because of this, so we told ourselves, then at least we would have died with a last moment of honor and dignity, and not running away from those you had made a pact with. It could have been any country – it did not matter.

So we ignored the order, stayed, and gnawed our way through wave after wave, until we were left standing. It was a surreal feeling. We were free, afterwards. Because no order of Konoha, no troops they had were strong enough to dictate terms to us. Was it a military putsch? Yes, it was. We held the border, advanced, and our newfound allies stayed with us.

As we consolidated our blossoming alliance, I came to value Shikamaru's diplomatic skills even more than his strategic ones. I had none, and he mostly did the talking while I sat and looked important, with a stern groove in my brow. It was a small joke between us that they found him to be more intimidating than me, even if I had killed vastly more people. And what always amused me the most was that I actually found it to be true, that he _wa_ s the more dangerous of us two – even if he didn't see it that way.

Often we neared destruction – and from Konoha neither supplies nor troops were forthcoming: none of us had entertained the notion to take it by force; none of us wanted to. But nature and our allies kept us fed. As we advanced, Kiri supplied us by the crates with canned shrimp. They said they kept the good fish for themselves, and canned shrimp had a longer shelf life. I got sick from them a few times, but it was better than nothing.

Later, as our alliance grew, other nations chipped in, too. Iron Country gave us boar pelts to keep us warm; Kusa had sake to lift our spirits. Shikamaru and I made it a point not to have our shinobi loot the country side. If ever there was supposed to be a peace on earth, it could not be founded on columns of a starved and devastated people. And sometimes, with nothing but our dignity and canned shrimps to feast on, we persisted, moved forward, and demanded – country by country by country – that this madness stop.

I looked at his smile now, and saw triumph, unveiled.

And how could we have felt any different? When, in the aftermath of the war, all nations south of Iwa and Kumo were bound by a single creed: no more war, for the world will end if this continues. How could we have felt anything but triumph, when we met, later, with the Tsuchikage and the Raikage, discussing terms for an armistice? There was no other possibility. The memory electrified even now, because at that moment, for the first time in almost fifteen years the world was free of war.

Days of peace turned into weeks, turned into months; and after half a year, the armistice became a full-blown peace as armies drew away from the border, came back home to their families. We had made it, we celebrated, and yet we knew not how to continue after war. It was all we had known.

Lost, and full knowing that a military tribunal would await us, we too brought the army back home, and stood with hundreds of shinobi in front of Konoha's gates. We expected punishment. Not for the simple shinobi, but for us – the general and his crafty accomplice. We had, after all, lit the fire in our troops.

At the gates, the figurehead wearing the robe took one look at us and almost threw the hat at me. The elders kept mum, too. I was named the Tenth Hokage within the day, got an office, and was promptly assaulted by all those tasks necessary to lift a war-torn country out of destitution.

And so I did, with Shikamaru at my side, who – if you were honest – headed almost every important position. Sure, the official heads were different: Sasuke for ANBU, Sakura for our Intelligence, Hinata for the Oi-nin, and so forth – but they all answered to him, and it would be a mistake to say that he answered to me. Never had the term Shadow Hokage been as apt.

I looked at this smile, and saw love and happiness.

Frantically we rebuilt Fire Country; frantically we kept a lid on war and combat wherever we could. Our children should not have to grow up in the same world as us, that was what we swore ourselves as we arrived back in Konoha – even before we had children.

He had it surprisingly easy. He was the most intelligent man I knew, and yet the least complicated. One evening as we relaxed at the river after a long day of administrative duties, we saw a group of Genin came by with their Jōnin instructor. We knew the Jōnin: she had fought beside us for several years. Shikamaru yawned into the setting sun, chugged the rest of his bottle, walked over to her, and asked if she'd like to get a drink later. Half a year later they married.

Conversely, I had some trouble. I was the Hokage, and if ever there was a job that at the same time attracts and repels women it's that one. It would be more accurate to say that love found me, not the other way around. I literally stumbled into it, ironically on the day Shikamaru got married, when I was so drunk that I kept running at ridiculous speed through Konoha at night, to prove to myself that I still had it.

I first thought I had crashed into a lamp post, but it turned out to be Kiba's older sister, Hana. The rest, as they say, was history. And so I too got to taste joy, because a woman in your life, a child to call your own: those things could lift your head into the clouds even when the goings got tough; and nothing beat the feeling of seeing your daughter crush it in the Chūnin Exam.

I looked at his smile, and tying all of it together – the gentle mocking, the pain, the insanity, the triumph, the joy – I saw friendship, the kind that lasted for a lifetime and if there was an afterlife I knew I would see it there again, because too often it had felt as if we were two sides of one soul.

* * *

 **FIN**


	3. Cease

**Disclaimer:** Characters belong to Masashi Kishimoto.

 **AN:** Smallish AU piece.

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 **Cease**

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 _So writes Hiruzen, on the seventh of Kalimari, to his student Jiraiya._

 _I have received your letter in time, Jiraiya, and ensured that Kusa will not make unnoticed advances towards the Hayam Delta. Your quick information made this possible, so thank you. I also noticed that your letters get shorter, more to the point. You usually don't put much stock in brevity, so I can only assume that once again you are angry with me for a decision I made._

 _Or perhaps it is more accurate to say, you are angry with the office I hold, for it continuously pits us against each other on matters of principle where we would agree if it weren't for the hat on my head, and what it means. It is unavoidable, though I wish it weren't so._

 _The saddest reality of the Hokage, Jiraiya, is that you cease being yourself and become the village. Its needs are yours, just as its losses and wins, the entirety of it, is yours._

 _When it comes to making a decision, no matter what I, Sarutobi Hiruzen, would have done, my decision will always come from a position of I, the village. In essence, to become Hokage means to cease your prior identity. It also means to live in a twisted state of mind, where you encounter frequently situations that make it harder to live with yourself. As a Hokage I sacrificed others for the village, even those that I as a person would have fought tooth and nail for. That is the sad truth. And every night when I put down the hat for what little time of respite I have, sleep reminds me of my deeds._

 _Konoha at sunrise, the most beautiful scene I can imagine, is also my greatest nightmare precisely because I know what it symbolizes: every choice I made for the village that hurt someone I love. For the same reason, choosing Minato was the hardest thing I ever did. My last decision for the village was to give it its greatest leader, breaking a happy man out of his family, making him cease to be himself, knowing that this would be what had to happen eventually – it always is – and knowing that I wanted to spare him that at any cost but couldn't._

 _At the same time, it was my most selfish moment because finally I could be myself again, I had handed down that burden to someone else. But for that, too, I slept less each night._

 _In a way that made it far easier to accept the hat once more after Minato died. I had lived a few years as myself, knowing that another person was going through this. When I took back the hat I figured it was my repentance for such selfishness. Ultimately, that is what being a shinobi means. To endure. And no one embodies that more than the Hokage who has, for the sake of everyone else, to endure ceasing._

 _I hope you can forgive me for my choices, Jiraiya. And I wish you would visit more often, even though I understand why you would rather avoid the village. Take care._

 _Sarutobi Hiruzen_

Jiraiya put down the letter. It was yellowed and crumpled, but he had kept it for all those years because at no other time had his late sensei ever been as open to him. How many years had passed since? Twenty? The last time he had read the letter was when he took the hat himself.

There was a knock at the door and Jiraiya called the visitor into his office.

Moegi entered, Jōnin vest snuggling her shape. She had become a young woman, strong, moral, lively. But for once Jiraiya couldn't find pleasure in that. Feeling the by now chronic pain in his back, he told her that he was getting too old for the office, and that he'd chosen her as his successor. And while her eyes grew wide, the letter weighed on Jiraiya's mind, and he couldn't remember another time at which he had felt as relieved yet miserable.

* * *

 **Fin**


End file.
